Dr. George John Marcopoulos, Professor of History Emeritus at Tufts University, passed away on January 7, 2012. He was born in Salem, Massachusetts, June 30, 1931, the only child of Greek immigrants John and Urania (Moustakis) Marcopoulos. He grew up in Salem and enjoyed summers in Maine where his uncles owned a popular and well-known candy shop. He graduated from Salem High School and subsequently enrolled at Bowdoin College in Maine, graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1953. Upon leaving Bowdoin, he earned a masters of arts in International Affairs at Harvard and then entered the Ph. D. program in History at Harvard where he studied under the respected scholars William L. Langer and Robert Lee Wolff, both of whom had a strong influence on the teacher and scholar he was to become. In the middle of his graduate studies in the late 1950s, George was called to active duty in the army at the rank of second lieutenant and stationed at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Returning home from duty, he continued his studies at Harvard and joined the faculty of the Tufts University Department of History in 1961 retiring from Tufts in 2006. His appointment marked something of a milestone, being the first Greek Orthodox member of the Department of History. Focusing his scholarship on the Byzantine Empire, Southeastern Europe, European royalty and foreign affairs, he authored articles in European diplomatic history that appeared in Balkans Studies and co-authored a pioneering essay in 1986 on “Women and World History” in The History Teacher. From 1966 to 2001, he wrote articles each year on Greece and Cyprus that appeared in The Americana Annual. He was an invited lecturer on Greek and Byzantium history, at conferences sponsored by the United Nations, the Fletcher School, and the Greek Institute in Cambridge. Even in retirement, he continued to speak on European monarchies at the Brookhaven retirement community in Lexington.
As a teacher and advisor, George was a true legend at Tufts. For forty five years he taught courses on the history of Europe, Byzantium and the Balkans shaping the intellectual pursuits and nurturing the growth of thousands of students. In course evaluations throughout his career, students spoke in one voice, praising him and his courses. Not only did they appreciate his “sense of humor “and his ability to enliven his classes with amusing historical anecdotes, but as one student explained: “He made every class enjoyable and human. I always
wanted to attend because he made history come alive.” In recognition of his outstanding work as a teacher and advisor, George was a two-time recipient of the Seymour O. Simches Award for Distinguished Teaching and Advising at Tufts.
In addition to his work with undergraduate students, George also mentored numerous graduate students, many of whom went on to become college professors themselves, and one Kostas Karamanlis, on whose dissertation committee he served, went on to become the Prime Minister of Greece.
George Marcopoulos believed deeply in the need to give back to his university and the broader community. To that end, he was a member of the Committee on Innovation and Experiment, which drafted plans for the establishment of the Experimental College at Tufts in the 1963/64 academic year. He chaired the Committee on Committees in the early 1970s and served on the Academic Awards Committee, the Educational Policy Committee, the Committee on Curricular, and the Committee on Foreign Language and Culture Requirements and as a member of the executive committee of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts . From 1963-2006 he served on the executive board of the Delta Chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Tufts, serving as president from 1979 to 1981. For many years he served on the board of directors of the Gerondelis Foundation,which grants fellowships to Greek and Greek-American graduate students. Until his retirement in 2006, he also oversaw the George A. David Fellowship at Tufts, which provides support for Tufts undergraduates to spend a semester in Greece at the College Year in Athens program.
In his own unique way George brought his family to Tufts. In the last decade, George arranged for the acquisition of the papers and films of 3 of his family members, including his uncle, Constantine Moustakis, a dispatcher for The New York Times in the 1912-1913 Balkan Wars and later a Republican party activist with correspondence with Presidents Harding and Coolidge and Christy Moustakis, the son of Constantine Moustakis, who served with Leon Trotsky in Mexico in the 1930s.
George was a model of decorum and tact, always friendly and open, whether it was with students, their parents, faculty colleagues, old friends from Salem or in recent years, his caregivers at Brookhaven. He always had a smile, a joke, or an anecdote, and had the knack for knowing when those around him needed to be cheered up. He treated everyone he met with respect and consideration and he genuinely cared about the people in his life. He will be deeply missed by his nieces, nephews and cousins as well as his colleagues at Tufts, his friends at Brookhaven and those thousands of students on whose lives he made an indelible impact.
A visitation will be held Wednesday, January 11, 2012 from 6 to 8 pm at the Full-Spychalski Funeral Home, 84 Washington Square East, by Salem, Common. His funeral will be on Thursday, January 12th from the funeral home at 9 am, followed by a service at 10 am at the St. Vasilios Greek Orthodox Church, 7 Paleologos Street, Peabody. Interment will follow at Greenlawn Cemetery, Salem. In lieu of flowers, donations may be in memory of George Marcopoulos to The Trustees of Tufts College and sent to Brigette Bryant, Office of University Advancement, 80 George Street, Suite 300-2, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, Attn: In memory of George Marcopoulos. For on line guestbook, please visit www.SalemFuneral.com.